


The Magi of Laem

by boychik



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Death, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scheherazade is dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Magi of Laem

**Author's Note:**

> Night 178 made me sad.

Scheherazade is dying.

She had watched her child-empire grow and blossom, fed steadily by her seemingly limitless magoi. She had seen golden domes and twisted dungeons rise from the soil, propelled by her hand. Her citizens’ small homes beneath the soaring arches and machicolations of grander halls, the glorious arenas where the best bested one another, the pillared houses of study—all rose from the striving of her citizens, but took root by her command, which left even her of such great power feeling pallid in her empire of gold, her heart straining with triumph.

She had made a clone, half a dozen clones, and poured herself into them. Her clones were young and goggle-eyed and tried to crawl, helpless, in the pool of their own juices on the floor. They had slimy skin. They knew nothing because they had forgotten everything, until she bent over their cradles and tapped them on the velvet dent above their upper lips. Then she watched their eyes widen and turn the color of moss. Their hair, the color of dandelions, shot down their backs, and flapped about like snakes. Scheherazade imparted in that brief second a flash the knowledge and the magic of two centuries of life. As her clones—her children, really, “clones” felt like some inhuman substance born of some cold scientist when Scheherazade is Titus, Titus is Scheherazade, the other Scheherazade carries her soul in a younger body—take it all in, they do not cry, but smile. In their eyes are the seeds of wishes that can never be fulfilled.

Into the other Scheherazade she entrusted her consciousness. Into the boy, Titus, she poured the part of her that sought knowledge desperately. But Titus, at his core, is different from her. He had hardly lived and as a result his heart is fresh from the oven. At his center is a desire to love, and be loved, and to go through life marveling at the beauty of the world and trying to destroy what is cruel and wrong.

Scheherazade has money, knowledge, her child-clones, her empire. But she has no more magoi. No more time. No more life in that desiccated husk. She can do nothing to grant those earnest, righteous wishes.

She looks down at the citizens of Laem. Their strong and upright backs, their beautiful brown skin, the sparing grace of their every movement—each generation is a clone of the previous. Their armor shines in the sun. A couple of children spar with sticks held as epées. She is so proud of each and every one of them…

There is no way to say goodbye to all of this. She has not the strength to drag herself into the streets she saw carved into the land, clasp each and every one of her citizens tight to her bosom and expel her last bit of magoi into their necks.

Scheherazade wants to gather up her children and float into the sky in a gunpowder balloon. A symbolic end would be best, yes. What she has given the people of Laem for two hundred years, they have returned tenfold simply by existing and continuing to exist. Rukh would rain down behind her on Laem and carry like dandelion seeds into all of the kingdoms in the world, more permanent than dungeons or bones or the ashes of war.


End file.
